Organization

Complex care needs of an individual often last a lifetime and require treatment addressed by a wide spectrum of needs, which can be a costly and time-consuming process. Despite the copious amounts funding allocated to complex care, there is growing evidence that these individuals are not receiving care that is coordinated or implemented in the most appropriate settings. Achieving patient engagement in complex care requires active collaboration in all phases of the care lifecycle, continuous patient participation, a method to monitor compliance, and engagement across the entire care continuum.

As a health care professional, keeping up with the ever-changing world of mHealth is key in implementing true patient engagement. Our white paper addresses the issues associated with the coordination of complex care throughout the care lifecycle. Download it today to see our take on the solution to improve a patient’s overall quality of life.

From June 16th-18th, Open Minds Strategy hosted the 2015 Strategy & Innovation Institute in New Orleans, Louisiana. Sammy Wahab, CEO and Founder of Mozzaz Corporation, walked away with many new market insights.

One of his biggest take-ways was that reimbursements to provider organizations will require proof of return across all payers; including commercial, Medicare, and Medicaid. The institute focused on payer preference for coordinated care. Another point made was that organizations need to make sure they are maintaining a competitive “value equation” ̶ in other words, getting the bang for their buck ̶ in terms of cost vs. quantity. The technology being implemented must not only create an advancement in the care continuum, but generate a return that’s greater than the cost of carrying out the technological advancement. The final take-way from the institute highlighted how new service lines emerging will all involve “care management”, meaning patients will become actively involved in their own care. “There was an increased emphasis on community based and coordinated care,” Wahab stated regarding the presentation.

He had plenty to walk away with, but major emphasis was placed on containing costs and providing more care across medical, behavioral, and social health sectors. More information on the 2015 Strategy & Innovation Institute can be found on the Open Minds website.

In a recent interview with healthitoutcomes.com, Debbie Welle-Powell, vice president for accountable health and payer strategies at SCL Health, highlighted how technology and legislation is causing a shift from the old per-month, per-member (PMPM) pay cycle to a more incentivized system that enables reduced costs to healthcare organizations (and patients) as well as raising the overall standard of care.

“We know the migration from volume to value is essential to delivering care that is accountable and affordable,” she said. The entire tone of the interview is about driving patient-centric care that is not just accountable and affordable, but also improving on relationships between care providers and patients. There are more news items every day that indicate a push towards accountable and outcome driven healthcare systems all across the globe. This is partly because of legislation such as ‘Obamacare’ also partly because organizations and patients alike are recognizing a need for greater accountability and reduced costs in their care plans.

The current system is not sustainable. The current system is lacking. The current system needs better tools to handle an aging population and a rise in chronic condition diagnoses.

She closed the interview by driving home the point, “It’s not just about lowering the expense; it’s really about improving care or understanding.”

Debbie Welle-Powell and the SLC Health team are clearly adapting well to the push for more patient-centric solutions that empower care recipients and organizations to improve their current level of care.

This is one trend that isn’t going anywhere but up, and we look forward to seeing more organizations like SLC Health drive the change that we all need.

83% of IT executives report they are using cloud services today for healthcare IT according to the 2014 HIMSS Analytics Cloud Survey. Health IT is moving to cloud and it’s no longer a “nice to have.” – It has become a necessity.

As health organizations transform how they serve their patients, consumers, and partners, cloud computing provides a way to reduce costs, simplify management, and improve services in a safe and secure manner.

At Mozzaz, our solution is built on Microsoft’s Windows Azure Cloud platform which is secure, scalable, reliable and based on industry standard technology. This also allows us to easily deploy to private cloud environments running in secure data centers when an organization requires additional security and privacy measures. Check out Microsoft’s Azure Trust Center to review their security and privacy certifications.

By moving to the cloud, healthcare organizations can effectively deliver coordinated care which requires convenient access to data that can be shared securely within a hospital, health system, or across an entire community.

It’s encouraging to see bipartisan legislation being pushed to support new models of healthcare reimbursement that will solve real cost and quality problems. The introduction of a new bill, "The ACO Improvement Act" (H.R. 5558)”, being proposed by Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) and Rep. Diane Black (R-Tenn.) as bipartisan legislation to build upon the progress of Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) in shifting the reimbursement of health care providers away from the traditional “fee for service” model to a focus on improving the health outcomes of patients.

As proposed, the legislation would encourage ACOs to use telehealth and mHealth by removing current barriers to remote patient monitoring tools and store-and-forward technology, with reimbursement "in a manner that is financially equivalent to the furnishing of a home health visit."

“If we are going to reduce health care costs and increase quality, the incentives built into the provider payment system need to be changed. In short, we need to reward value, not volume,” said Rep. Welch. “Paying health care providers based on improvements in patient health rather than the number of procedures they perform is the way of the future. Our legislation will advance these payment reforms and is based on the experience of ACOs in Vermont and around the country.”

CMS may also soon unveil a next generation model of Medicare ACOs that could expand telemedicine, and Rep. Gregg Harper's (R-Miss.) Telehealth Enhancement Act (H.R. 3306), which was introduced last October and has been referred to the House Subcommittee on Health, would authorize ACOs to include telehealth and remote patient monitoring services as supplemental healthcare benefits equal to that offered by Medicare Advantage plans.

All in all, I applaud these initiatives as it will make it easier to adopt the advancements in technology that are really making a difference in the cost and quality of care that is being delivered.

The Commonwealth Fund, a private foundation supporting research and grants to on health care issues and policies, had an interesting review on the performance of the Affordable Care Act that was signed into law March 23, 2010 under heavy controversy.

Is it working??

In summary, their conclusion is that the US health care system better off in September 2014 than it was in 2010. As a visual thinker, I like infographics and here’s their assessment in pictures.